Golos can be tricky to build around since he can do literally anything pretty well. The easiest way to make an effective Golos deck is to lean into Golos's 7 Mana Rainbow Wheel Of Death. Before getting into that though, we need to cover some EDH deckbuilding basics.

I think the most useful advice I can give someone who is just beginning to explore the deck-building territory of EDH is to structure your deck and mind your Ratios. By this I mean it is useful to categorize the cards in your deck according to the role they fulfill.

We’ll begin by looking at some core categories that you’ll want to make your deck function effectively. Then I’ll present the Ratios (how many of each category of card) you will want to make a generic Golos deck function effectively. Next, I’ll include a detailed (but not totally complete, because I’d be here all day) catalogue of cards within some of those categories. I’ll also offer up some suggestions and input about some of your specific card choices. Lastly, since I’m about to unpack a lot of information, I will include a brief list of suggestions (see the bottom) for a generically good Golos ‘Shell’ that should be able to support most Golos strategies.

Draw cards are cards that draw you additional cards. There are two subcategories for Draw cards; Draw Spells and Draw Engines.

Draw Spells are one-time use cards that immediately get you 2 to 3 cards.

Draw Engines are cards that might not get you cards immediately but will gradually draw you cards as you play your deck and the game goes longer.

Either variety of Draw card may either be generically powerful or may instead be dependent on synergy (meaning you need to do something specific in order to draw cards). Some cards are hybrids that are generically powerful but get better with additional synergy.

Ramp cards are cards that increase your capacity to produce mana while also accelerating the pace of your mana production. This is generally done by either the card acting as a permanent that creates mana or by finding a land card from your deck and putting it into play. By definition, a Ramp card should be cast within the first 3 turns of the game in order to allow you to cast more/larger spells sooner in the game. For a Golos deck, you should try to ramp once by turn 3 so that you can cast Golos on turn 4 (this won’t always happen, but your deck should be able to do it regularly – see Ratios for more).

There are 3 main subcategories of Ramp; Ramp Spells, Mana Rocks, and Mana Dorks.

Ramp Spells are one-time use cards that find a land from your deck and put it into play (usually tapped).

Mana Rocks are artifacts that produce mana.

Mana Dorks are creatures that produce mana.

Resilience, Speed, and Synergy of Ramp Cards

Ramp Spells are the most Resilient type of Ramp card, as lands are not usually destroyed in EDH. Ramp Spells also trigger Landfall Synergies (Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Omnath, Locus of the Roil, Field of the Dead) which can be incredibly powerful over the course of a longer game. Ramp Spells can also “Color Fix” by finding specific basic lands that you might need to cast a spell or complete the Rainbow to activate Golos’s Rainbow Wheel of Death. However, it should be noted that Ramp Spells are purely slower than Mana Rocks as they almost always bring lands into play tapped.

Removal spells are Instants that destroy a target (typically a creature). These are essential for survival, as you can defend yourself or dismantle an opponent’s plans at a crucial moment and most often during their turn.

The Importance of Instants

Non-instant spells that destroy creatures are never considered Removal because you cannot count on them to save you if your opponent has an explosive turn (for example, they resolve Ghalta, Primal Hunger with Lightning Greaves on the board and they immediately equip the boots and attack you. Only an Instant could respond to the equipping of the boots and destroy Ghalta before it acquired Haste and Shroud.)

Sweepers are spells that destroy or ‘bounce’ (return to hand) all creatures and/or other permanents.

These may also be referred to as ‘Boardwipes’.

Deciding to play Sweepers

The decision to include Sweepers may depend on the state of your playgroup (your Meta). For example, if someone in your playgroup is playing an Ezuri, Renegade Leader deck (or similar) then you will almost definitely need to include Sweepers just to keep the nonsense at bay, because otherwise that opponent will likely overwhelm you with a small mountain of creatures. While that is a fun and powerful strategy, it can be counteracted by the presence of a few Sweepers in your deck. A well-built creature deck with the appropriate amount of Draw will still be able to recover, so this isn’t necessarily going to force your opponent to have a miserable time. Think of Sweepers as a way to buy time against faster, more aggressive decks – something that you’ll need to be wary of since you are playing a 5 color deck with a 5 Converted Mana Cost Commander.

Threats are cards that present a challenge to your opponents, most often in the form of a large creature that is capable of killing them and/or smashing their plans to pieces. Threats may take a different form though, such as enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers, or even lands.

Golos in particular loves threats because of the simple, spicy fact that he can hit them with his Rainbow Wheel Of Death. This makes building a threat-centric Golos deck both incredibly fun and terrifyingly effective.

Support cards are somewhat obscure cards that don’t fulfill any of the usual roles, but instead enhance some aspect of your deck by improving your Engines (such as Draw Engines or other Value Engines like a Token Generator) or Threats.

Generally speaking, support cards are the cards that make your deck go from good to crazy and they often empower you to win the game if uninterrupted.

An example of a support card is Leyline of Anticipation which allows you to cast your spells at any time, but doesn’t do anything by itself.

Almost any Golos deck particularly enjoys the inclusion of incredibly powerful support cards such as Zendikar Resurgent, Mirari's Wake, Nyxbloom Ancient, or other options that increase the amount of mana you can create to use with Golos’s Rainbow Wheel Of Death.

Lands are an obvious inclusion for most Magic decks, but I will mention them anyway.

I am familiar with three main categories of lands; Basic Lands, Utility Lands, and Color Fixing Lands.

Basic Lands are always useful in small quantities for decks that play many Ramp Spells (I recommend this for most Golos decks).

Utility Lands may or may not generate colored mana (for our purposes, we will assume they only generate colorless mana) but they come equipped with a powerful ability.

Color Fixing Lands are lands that are nonbasic but allow us to ‘fix’ our colors by providing us with an option of mana to choose from. These are very helpful for most Golos decks.

Cascading Cataracts

I will mention right now that Cascading Cataracts is the ultimate Color Fixing Land because it can be immediately fetched by Golos and it allows you to consistently Spin The Wheel regardless of your color availability (note that you need 7 mana plus the Cascading Cataracts, which often implies you need 8 lands). If you are plan on playing a deck with few color requirements (mostly one or two primary colors) then this card can singlehandedly enable The Wheel.

The art of Ratios is all about determining what combination of cards from each category makes your deck run the most smoothly.

Please note that these Ratios will not total to 99 cards. This is because you will invariably have extra flexibility to choose how your deck behaves even after establishing functional Ratios. Also keep in mind that although these Ratios do recommend you adhere to the minimum number of cards in each category, you still can choose which cards will fill those slots. The point is not to restrict your options, but instead to create a ‘Shell’ that is reliable enough to power your Threats cards, Support cards, and other cards. Whatever you do, make sure you have at least the minimum number of Draw and Ramp cards. THE MOST IMPORTANT CARDS IN THE DECK ARE DRAW AND RAMP!!!

While I ultimately suggest Ratios resembling the Basic Golos Shell, I will lay out the Ratios for several different Shells;

Template: a sort of baseline beginner’s guide which is commonly promoted as a place to start.

Basic Golos: a modified version of the Template that suites most Golos decks.

Control: a version tailored for a slower game with many Sweepers.

Aggro: a version designed to act quickly and deploy Threats before the opponents are prepared.

Big Mana: a version invested heavily into Ramp with the goal of deploying many end-game Threats.

Mega Mana: an even more extreme version of Big Mana with extremely expensive Threats.

Please remember that any suggestions I make are because I am trying to help. Ultimately, the choices you make with your deck are up to you, and I can only provide constructive criticism based on my own experience and opinions.

Good luck :)

Ratio Fixing

The most effective change to your deck would probably be adjusting the Ratios, especially with regard to your Draw cards. Applying the most basic Template Shell, you want to have at least these three quantities nailed down for a smoother and reasonably powerful deck;

I see a few cards that Recover cards from the graveyard and that is fine but it is not Draw.

Cycling cards are not Draw cards if we define Draw cards as being able to find you 2 or 3 cards and thus help refill your hand.

Mutate

Depending on how strong your Mutate subtheme is, some of your Mutate inclusions may act as engines. However, I must state that Mutate is a VERY risky and even fragile strategy since your Mutate ‘Pile’ of creatures will all be destroyed at once if your opponent uses a Removal spell or a Sweeper. For that reason, I recommend leaning out of the Mutate theme (unless the Mutate card is just straight-up insane, as in the example of Nethroi, Apex of Death).

With that said, playing a Mutate theme is your decision and I totally respect that and if you want to stick to a Mutate theme then by all means do so. I just want to be sure you know that Mutate is a risky strategy that you cannot depend on to fulfill your Ramp and Draw slots (so you’ll just need to supplement it with other cards).

Cut or Include?

At a glance your deck seems like something you have created using just your collection – and that’s great! However, if you want to incrementally upgrade your deck, then I recommend replacing most of the cards in your deck with more powerful options over time.

Here is a list of cards you should probably keep playing:
- Barrier Breach (Removal, because exiling 3 enchantments is helpful in some situations)

Lands

Just as a recommendation, I would suggest the following spread of Basic Lands;

8 Basic Forests

3 of each other Basic Land

The remainder of your lands could be either more basics (which is really, really, risky if you don’t have tons of Ramp – think like 15 Ramp cards and about 12 Basic Forests) or Color Fixing Lands (see the Catalogue for more options). It is rough to have your lands enter the battlefield tapped, but unless you want to either lean into Green or spend a lot of money on lands, you will just have to live with it (I play around 5-10 tapped lands in a normal Golos deck and it isn’t really that bad).

In this section, I will list out an example of the Basic Golos Shell complete with the necessary Ratios and some examples of good/fun cards in each category. I’ll try to keep it relatively Budget sensitive and most of these cards will be relatively random – this won’t be based on any particular theme so don’t expect it to be optimal.

1 month ago

Death cloud rock with Uro, Titan of Nature's wrath??? Am I missing the uro somewhere or did it get dropped from the deck? Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger would be a better color fit.

Nitpicking question aside, I have some legitimate questions and concerns about your build.

Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl: With only 7 "forests" in the deck, making use of these 2 might be problematic. Not to mention it could result in a lot of extra losses when you Death Cloud. Original cloud decks use to run things like Sakura-Tribe Elder (steve) and Solemn Simulacrum (jens) to speed up the deck and protect against aggro decks. They might do well here.

I think you need more lands. I realize you have Wrenn and Six to help build/recover your mana base, but if you aren't drawing your correct fetchlands and basics, it might make things really awkward. Not to mention that you have 25 cards that cost 3 or more mana. Plus if you ever do get to ultimate wrenn you'll want the lands for the retrace.

Klothys, God of Destiny: Are you intending to attack with this or is it here mainly for its ability? I can't see this being a creature very often.

What I do like about this deck is the use of planeswalkers and how they aren't impacted by Death Cloud. I think Liliana, the Last Hope might work better than Liliana of the Veil. It could control early game creatures and what could be played early after a cloud. Not to mention it could get back steve or kroxa if you want to go that route.

Anyhow, hope it helps or gives you things to think about. I can try to explain better down the line if what I've wrote isn't making sense.

2 months ago

In making my Sygg, Tollfolk and Governor-Goddess Ephara Decks, I became very interested in turn-related effects, and that inspire this card, as well as Klothys, God of Destiny, who switches the way usually work, whereas most Gruul cards use green's might to accomplish red's free spirit, She uses Red's fury to express nature's law which green cares about.

Based on (Gerðr)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ger%C3%B0r] in Kaldheim.

Khyrteh, Goddess of Polar Winter

Legendary Snow Creature - God

Protection from instants

You may cast Khyrteh, Goddess of Polar Winter

Whenever a player casts a spell at a time they couldn't cast a sorcery, that player loses 5 life.

At the beginning of your endstep, if you cast no spells this turn, search your library for a card, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it and you gain 5 life.

2 months ago

Trashcan: Sort of. Gratuitous Violence is definitely worth it, since it only doubles my creatures' damage and not everyone's. The various plinkers like Thermo-Alchemist and Lobber Crew now hit all opponents for 2 dmg per activation, and if Klothys gets devotion then her triggered ability hits all opponents for 4 each turn. Plus, Gratuitous Violence + Klothys puts devotion to 5, so I only need 2 more pips to turn Klothys into a creature and benefit from that damage doubler.

Dictate of the Twin Gods isn't so bad thanks to flash. You can flash it in on the endstep before your turn if you are properly set up to capitalize on it before anyone else get the benefit of doubling their damage. For example, in a game I played recently I was able to flash in Dictate before my turn, then on my turn I activated Klothys for 4 dmg, tapped Thermo-Alchemist for 2 dmg, cast Flame Rift for 8 dmg and untapped Thermo-Alchemist, tapped Thermo-Alchemist for another 2 dmg, cast Slagstorm for 6 dmg to players and untapped Thermo-Alchemist, then tapped Thermo-Alchemist again for 2 more damage. In that turn, I took a total of 12 dmg (14 between Flame Rift and Slagstorm, but +2 life from Klothys) while my opponents took a total of 24 dmg. I did manage to knock one player out entirely, and put the other two players into single digit life totals.

The other nice thing about Dictate of the Twin Gods is that I can flash it in as a combat trick on someone else's turn. There are a couple of Voltron decks in my playgroup, and one person has a Feather, the Redeemed deck that can put out a stupid amount of commander damage. If I flash in Dictate during a Voltron player's combat step, then they can potentially knock another opponent out of the game for me by doubling up the commander damage. By virtue of being an instant-speed interaction thanks to Flash, Dictate actually has quite a few good uses in this deck.

I admit that Furnace of Rath isn't terribly great in this deck, but doubling all the damage output makes all of the other spells and effects so much more efficient, and it does wonders for speeding up overall gameplay. As I said in the description, I built this deck with a personal "win-con" in mind, and that isn't to win the game. Ideally, my goal is to be able to deal at least 25 damage to each opponent over the course of the game, whether I win or lose. This deck seeks to punish everyone and almost become an Archenemy of sorts. The handful of games I have played with it so far I have only failed that personal goal once, and even then I was able to deal about 22 dmg to everyone before I got knocked out.

Are there better ways to build a Klothys, God of Destiny deck? Probably. Are there more fun ways to build one? Not for me.

2 months ago

A personal preference for the sake of reading, I would recommend not listing every version of a card your running and just do the x copies of card. I think it is harder to get a good understanding of a deck when constantly trying to remember how many of a card there are.

With that being said however, I am curious if you have trouble getting the 2nd red mana you need to cast a lot of your land destruction spells. I think 20 lands might be to low and would try to find room for 2 to 3 more.

-4 Oath of Nissa you really dont have enough planeswalkers to make use of its mana fixing and just grabbing a creature seems kinda meh imo. Granted, a Bloodbraid Elf is kinda like a 2 card gain with the cascade.

2 months ago

2 months ago

They already have the: "tax noncreature spells" idea locked. They should get more equality-based taxes with upside. I think more things like: "for each card drawn past the 1st, that player may pay , or all opponents draw a card" would be a fun design space. This does not stop plays but promotes table balance. More things similar to Heartwood Storyteller but in white... Where you are punishing by gifting. That "share with the class" mentality is very white, majorly opposite of (which is a flavor win). I think should explore more advantage for noncreature permanent destruction as well. There is more creativity to be had in game design, just look at Gruuls Klothys, God of Destiny creative, but not game-breaking. has advantage for creature death in spades, I'm not sure why shouldn't gain advantage for some other destruction.

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